1 Flagon, 2 Flagons, 3 Flagons, THOR!
by Hey-a squirrel stole my glove
Summary: One night. No recollection. There's pie on the wall, and two gods in your kitchen. Hmmm...Tony and his fellow house mates wake up in a none-too-unfamiliar state, but no idea how they got that way. Now all they need to do is back track and coffee up ya'll, before Pepper finds out! Enjoy everybody!
1. Chapter 1

Okay, I saw the Captain America movie two days before I started typing this thing out, but about a month after I had the idea and started to write. So for those who know why I say this, please know that I'll try to figure it out. For those who may not yet know why I am babbling in riddles, no worries, enjoy the feature presentation. Review all you want. I'm trying to do this for fun, and this slew of crazy was just begging to go jogging into the world of written reality. So please, don't be too surprised if this is too amateur-y because it's my first literary brain child, but I still wanted to do it. I hope you enjoy it, but please tell me what you really think.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. There will be mentions of brand names and real restaurants (but if you don't know the name, I probably made it up), and all characters belong to Marvel. Heck, I know I'm not worthy, so why would I take them from the ones who make them amazing?

_**One Flagon, Two Flagons, Three Flagons, THOR!**_

Steve woke up first. He opened his eyes, not quite one at a time, but more like in delayed reaction, can't-unstick-the-tacky-glue-stuff time with each other. His first thought...didn't happen for a few moments. But when it did, it at least made

sense.

"Wow, the little sparkly stars must be on steroids!"

He was flat on his back on the marble living room floor of Tony Stark's Malibu house, a.k.a. the "Avenger's Clubhouse", staring directly up at the crystal chandelier. Which, if you were on a sixteen-foot ladder, you would notice was balancing Cap's very own star spangled shield perfectly over its center, which was in turn spangling the chandelier with smaller, very brightly lit mini-shields. But of course, in his current condition, how the heck was he supposed to know that?

At first he didn't try to get up, but his head and eyes started to oscillate automatically to take in his surroundings. At first, all he saw was a weird smoky haze. No. Wait. That was Tony, wearing all of his Iron Man armor except for his helmet, laying off to his left, sleeping quite well, and festooned in amazing amounts of whipped cream.

"Huh."

Steve's curiosity wasn't really aroused, but something deep within his...unconscious? Subconscious? Somewhere in there, helped him to register that this scene merited some considerable acknowledgement.

_And then it was gone-_

As the next few minutes of lying on the floor passed, his personality slowly started to surface, and with it at least a bit of his sensible thinking. So he slowly turned over onto his right side and tried to leverage himself up. But as soon as his boot hit the marble, it slid out from under him, sending him crashing with elephantine (it is _so_ a real word, he thought) grace back to the thick floor.

"_Heeey_!" came a wail from somewhere to his left and up. "Don't knock so loud! You can have the tub next, I swear!"

Daring to brave the spinning room, Steve looked up into Clint's...was that really his face? Oh, holy Sizzler...as he peered down at Steve from inside the Baby Grand piano. He was sopping, dressed in his usual 'Hawkeye' gear, except for a green cape that was wrapped around his shoulders. His face was like a spa treatment from the depths of Hell...or downtown New York. It was slathered with what looked like chocolate pudding that hung from his eyebrows, ears, nose, and lips. Both of his eyes could just be identified under the chocolate crap, and were rimmed with red and black. And lastly, his hair was spiked up as straight as his arrows, defying all laws of physics despite the water that was seeping through his clothes.

"What the He...?", Steve thought as he rose slowly, this time careful not to slip on what could only be described as a cesspool of food stuffs on the floor. He walked, or kind of ice-skate/hobbled over to the piano, and looked inside as Clint looked unfocusedly at him. Upon inspection Steve discovered that the whole inside was filled up like a miniature swimming pool.

"Clint, how did you get in there?"

"Um, well...that's a great question. Why are you dressed like a hotdog?" Clint asked puzzledly, looking up and down at the ketchup and mustard zigzagged vertically down the front of Steve's uniform.

"Where are the other guys?" Clint finally asked, wincing as he and Cap handled his sopping form out of the piano. It let out a couple water-logged discordant notes as his weight shifted, setting both of their headaches to levels of red alert subconscious meltdown.

As he helped Clint step down, Cap gestured with a look toward Tony. Clint gawped at him.

"Well, he's over there, and he _might_ be alive!" Steve answered cheerily.

"So where's, uh...*click* Thor!" Clint asked, gazing blearily around while trying very hard not to throw up.

"Don't know...You don't think we left him somewhere do you?"

"No...I don't hear sirens. But...I can hear...thunder."

Gesturing vaguely past the dessert-tray that was Tony, Clint indicated the side door that led farther into the mansion. Snoring. Dry, scary, moose with the flu, under water with a broken snorkel after adenoid surgery snores were blasting sonorously out of the hall.

"It could wake the dead." Steve breathed in awe, staring bloodshot-bug-eyed at the noise.

"OOOOOOOooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh!" Tony groaned right on cue, rising up like a slow-motion hospital bed.

"We should have bet on it," remarked Clint with an alarmed look as Tony groped his way out from under Big Fluff Candy Mountain.

"I'm still betting alive," Steve decided hesitantly as he stared down listlessly at their sticky teammate.

"Why does my mouth taste like hot wax?" asked Tony. He dragged himself up with the half-step that rested before the piano, slipping and swaying like a Weeble-Wobble.

"For the same reason that there's now a pizza stuck to the back wall and why Cap's pants are on inside-out," Clint replied drolly, like he actually had any clue why there were anchovies suck in the wall like spears of stinky fury.

"What did we _do_ last night? I shouldn't be able to get drunk! My gosh, I feel like a psychedelic Sherman tank ran over my brain, abducted it and boiled it in tequila!" Steve moaned, face twisting in discomfort.

"Cancun, summer of 1977," Tony deadpanned from the step he had been unable to clear.

Clint's self-preservation instincts had loyally stopped all response to this cold, so in an attempt to find sanity elsewhere, he began to edge carefully towards the hallway door.

"Hey, wait up!" Steve whisper-shouted before pushing himself away from the piano and shuffling to keep up with him.

After 30 seconds of supreme effort, Tony slithered up and staggered frankensteinishly after them both.

*************A****************A**************************************A*****************************************A******************A**************A***

They all staggered down the hall like super-uncoordinated zombies, taking a lot longer than any normal men should have, but according to them, that was because the sheer force of Thor's snoring was blowing them back.

"That's why Thor's been the God of Thunder since he was a kid," Steve reasoned as they trudged down the hall. No one disagreed with that.

"I always wondered how that worked out, you know, pre-hammer and everything," Tony mumbled.

They walked, wobbled, and slipped along the dark, eerily deserted-feeling hallway. The white walls were gray in the half-light of the drawn shades, and the floor squeaked under foot...man, when did this hallway get so freakin' eerie? They were on the coast of Malibu for crying out loud...Anyway, as these thoughts passed, they continued to make their way toward the source of the foghorn blasts and eventually reached their destination, the door that led into...

"OH MY DOG!" Tony bellowed as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

No, it was not a kitchen. It was a massacre. It was food death. It was snackacide. It was fortified! Spring-loaded spatulas ranged the wall, loaded with bags of lima beans tied loosely enough that they would fly open and rain down upon anyone suicidal enough to cross the threshold of the kitchen. Unfortunately, Clint and Steve had done just that.

Also, the lima beans had been dunked in honey. So Steve and Clint stood, now covered in sticky booby-trap beans, angry, shocked, and hung-over just inside the door.

Slowly, Clint turned and looked at the other two.

"I think I know why I filled the piano with water and decided to climb in." he told them with an even stare, then turned and stared at the source of his current stickiness.

There he was, the Norse God of Thunder, passed out cold on top of the marble counter-topped island in the center of the kitchen. Snoring like a bear with a cold, and his face flat on the left. But Loki really stole the scene this time. Oh heck yeah, he was there. He was sound asleep, snoring quietly (so it was amazing that anybody even noticed) with the most peaceful expression any of them had ever seen him wear on his food-splattered face. He was hanging from the waist-up out of the microwave. Yeah, he was just hanging out, arms dangling on either side of his face, hands gently resting on the stove top.

Clint walked up as carefully as he could while trying not to trip over (or set off) anything to get a closer look at this weirdness.

"Magic?" Tony asked.

"Broken legs?" Steve speculated.

"Legs of a flamingo?" Tony's face was a bit too disinterested there. That gleam in his eyes wasn't very subtle either.

"No, none of those" Clint replied, edging nearer to Loki's softly breathing form. He peered into the tiny cranny between Loki's body and the wall of the microwave, to find that...

"There's a hole punched right through the back of the microwave and on through the wall behind it" Clint reported, as he turned to look back at them again.

Tony's response to that was to run out of the room and down the hall, surprising both of the other men considering that two minutes ago he'd barely been able to stand up. A second or two later they heard his raucous laughter from the other side of the wall that Loki was using as his sleeping quarters.

Tony's face was red as he reappeared in the doorway.

"He's in the game room!" Tony could barely speak around the huge grin on his face and the tears streaming from the corners of his eyes. "Pac Man's totaled, his feet are stickin' out of it, and his legs are coated in some weird..." he paused for air. "HA! HA! Sticky stuff, and the plaster mixed with it...! *_GASP_* He looks like a breaded chicken!

The whipped cream ran a little farther down his chest as he shook with laughter, but Tony didn't seem to notice.

"Must be an alcoholic aftershock" Clint decided as he stepped back into the general area of the room to take a really good look at everything.

"Wow, this place is a mess" he observed, looking around at the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and the refrigerator. It was standing open, completely empty if you didn't count the spatterings of mess that also marked the rest of the room. The light was smashed and the tiny computer screen in the freezer door was covered in ancient Norse runes smeared on with ketchup. The walls were covered in dry, and in places not-so-dry, food stuffs and condiments, which the ceiling reflected with even bigger stains. There were boiled egg shells on the counter, each retaining some of their natural white color, but mostly blackened and crispy-looking. Pie pans littered the floor in places, especially near the door. Upon noticing this, Steve followed their steady trail out the door, across the hall, and up the wall. It was covered in chunks of pie crust and dyed different colors from the various fillings. He looked between the place where the bulk of the pastries had pooled by the floor molding and Thor, who was positioned on the island in direct line with the open doorway. Looking back at the soiled wall, he began to notice that it seemed to be sporting a strange design silhouetted by the desecrated pies, which looked vaguely human. No, actually make that plural, with one shape being slightly more broad-chested than the other two. He looked down at himself, and then looked back at the shapes. Okay he could see the maroon discoloration on his shirt, but why wouldn't it be on his pants? Unless...

"Man what a waste of pie" Tony sighed with disappointment, gazing slightly reverently at the crazy mish-mash of abused baked goods at his feet.

"I'm not surprised that that's what bothers you the most right now" Clint remarked with an oddly wistful look at the filthy wall.

"No, that's the fact that all of the windows are intact. See, when I throw a party," Tony explained, "windows always get smashed. So, we must have pulled one heck of a night if not even one window has a single scratch. I mean, my parties are, in all modesty, legendary, so whatever we partook of last night could have been one of the most world-tilting nights of any living beings life." He paused and fixed Clint with a wide-eyed look so as to impress on him the gravity of the situation. Then he continued "Also, Jarvis didn't wake us up, and he knows I need coffee after a party night, and I'm a bit put off by that too, yeah." he finished with what sounded like petulance in his voice, his bottom lip stuck out ever so slightly.

Loki suddenly twitched and let out a strange sound that kind of resembled a sleepy "_Hurrah!_" before resting his hands once again on the stove.

After a moment of waiting to see if their on hiatus ex-enemy was comatose once more, Clint blinked and slowly opened his mouth. "Okay, that was even more weird than your concern for the pie. If you're done, I'm gonna make coffee now". He turned around to start sorting through the cupboards where they kept the coffee only to realize that it was the one in the island: right under Thor's hand.

"Oh, great" he grunted.

Tony shuffled forward. "When I die, spread the coffee grounds over my grave. I ain't goin' without coffee" he said as he edged close to Thor with one hand extended before him like he was going to have to wrestle off a honey badger unprotected.

"Hey Thor! Bu-ddy!" He whispered softly when he got close enough to be heard through the shaggy blond hair. "You wanna wake up for us? I'm not really into losin' a limb, I don't care how hot the chicks seem to think that is, so just no sudden moves when you regain consciousness, please. We desire to make the magic percolated brew that cures lethargy and alcoholic aftermath!"

_***THOOMP!***_

One mighty arm pinned Tony from the neck-up to the counter top, knocking the wind right out of him despite his armor. Tony looked up at Steve and Clint with huge, panic-bright eyes.

"Okay, this is _not_ the way I pictured I'd go!" he muttered. Thor apparently disagreed as he yawned and tucked Tony's head closer to his chest.

Steve rushed forward, just not too fast (he wasn't gettin' captured by the Mighty Snuggler), and started to gently shake the arm holding Tony. However, this just made Tony's eyes bug so much he looked like a stress toy in the hand of an overworked, unpaid intern.

"Whoa, whoa, wait!" Clint shouted before Tony got taller by way of strangulation. He dropped to his knees and shot his arm out, opening the cabinet that had, ironically enough, become unobstructed since Thor had decided he required a life-sized teddy bear. He ducked down and looked through his myriad of choices, from Columbian Supreme to some Belgian brew he thought must be a gag name that was actually a cuss word. He finally decided judiciously on God's gift to the drunk: Folgers. He quickly grabbed the can, shot up and cracked it open. He snapped up the plastic scoop resting in the amazing grains of sobriety and hefted a huge mound of it right up under Thor's nose. For a second, nobody breathed, moved, or even thought. Except for Thor, who was at least moving and breathing. But then he suddenly stopped breathing like a vacuum but took quick, sharp sniffs. (Meanwhile, Tony had been changing colors to first match Thor's cape, then Clint's outfit, heading straight for Steve's helmet...)

Thor's eyes fluttered open, almost by force, and swiveled his head to get nearer to the amazing scent that had raised his obviously beaten and destroyed body back to life. But when he looked up, he didn't see Brunhilde and her horse flying back to Asgard to await instructions from his father, but a cup of grainy brown pieces in a black-gloved hand. He raised his head a little bit more and saw a creature of unknown origin calling his name with great urgency.

"Hey dude, you've gotta loosen up your grip a little bit cuz' Tony's about to experience internal combustion!"

Thor looked to his right where he heard a strange 'aahch-uaughhch!' sound that he felt could be the cause of this strange thing's concern. His fuzzy vision revealed a man that resembled the Jotun version of his dear friend Tony.

"What evil apparition is this?" he murmured, frowning baffledly at the extremely freaky sight.

Tony hacked in response. This must have reached Thor somehow, because his eyes suddenly got big and he opened his arm as fast as he could to let Tony go. Metal clanked and crashed as Tony rolled bonelessly off of the counter and down onto the floor like a bag of wet laundry. Thor lay watching as he wheezed his color back to its normal beigey human tone.

"Good friend, what has been done to you? I had believed with your snow-covered clothes and your blue visage that you had been touched by dark deeds and some magic had made you into one of the Jotuns! But now I see that it was but an illusion."

Tony just lay on the floor like a fish just dropped on the boat and gasped breathlessly.

After a swift glance at Tony's floppy form, Steve took a step closer to Thor, trying to ease him back into wakefulness as gently as he could. "Man, you have to be stiff" he remarked with friendly amusement, observing the hard marble table top that Thor had spent the last...well, who even _knew_ how many hours on.

Thor turned his gaze from the convulsing Tony to look at the man he knew as Captain America and his face suddenly grew grieved.

"My dear warrior, who has done this to you? The blade must have been sharp indeed to leave such precise marks. And what is this yellow fluid that seeps from you as well? Is this some side effect of your special abilities?"

Steve stared at him for a moment in complete bewilderment before realizing that his clothes were covered in last week's groceries. But when he tried to explain that he had to wait for a second to get his voice back because Thor grabbed him and pressed his hand to the apparently 'oozing wounds' on Steve's chest. With a stony face and crossed eyes Thor whipped his head around to the room's other occupant.

"Strange one, please get the white box with the red cross upon its face in the room down the hall!" he demanded to Clint. "It will contain supplies necessary for healing! Also, there must be something within it to cure this blasted duplication of all the things which I see before me!"

Clint stared at him blankly, and did actually back up a little bit, but only out of self-preservation.

"_Thooorr!_" Steve wheezed out like an eighteen-wheeler releasing the brakes, "I'm not...wasn't wounded! I'm just covered in ketchup and stuff! Please take your hand out of my solar plexus!

Thor looked at him in wonder and confusion, and then _sloooooooooowly_ drew his hand back and looked at it long and hard, squinting at it and blinking like a near sighted owl. With his lungs freed, and also revolting, Steve leaned hard against the counter and gasped anxiously for air. Then his eyes flew open and he stopped wheezing so completely Clint thought he'd had a seizure. By the time he knew what had happened Steve was already gone down the hall, and the sound of violent retching could be heard in the distant bathroom. But Clint's concern was short lived, and not just because of his own nausea.

Thor's eyes were sloth to be pried away from his now slimy hand, but when they were, they landed right on Clint's face.

"Aw, crap." said Clint, completely aware of his lonely position as Thor's focus slowly adjusted along with his eyes.

"Strange creature, what has been done here? I am not sure how long you've been in our company but perhaps you know why my friends are in such a poor way. Have they perhaps been poisoned in the night?"

Instead of answering directly, (not to mention obviously), Clint gave his poor buddy the benefit of the doubt, so he answered: "When I drink, I usually don't have to think so much in the morning, so knock off the ritzy talk."

Thor's eyes creased with complete bafflement.

"Why do you speak with the voice of the great hero known as Hawkeye?"

Clint looked at his friend and wondered if maybe, just maybe, Thor had been dropped to Earth as an infant and landed on his big Asgardian head. And if maybe Loki had been right about...

This thought was paused as Thor reached out and grabbed him square in the face despite his precautionary steps backward. Then he was being squee-jeed like a windshield by Thor's huge hand as it came slowly down from his slick hairline to his chin, wiping off all the chocolate pudding it was encountering and confirming that yes, he had two swollen and throbbing black eyes that now burned with the intensity of a black top in the July sun. He snatched Thor's hand away, but his teammate (who was not his friend right now, no freakin' way sir) just used his other giant paw to rake down what was left of his face. With an oddly fitting squawk Clint desperately wrenched himself out of his reach, eyes blazing.

He hissed in pain. "MY GOSH! DAMN, THOR! If I EVER get sunburn, you stay the heck away from me!" he bellowed, his eyes and face feeling like he'd just crouched at the end of the assembly line of a cheese-grater factory. He frantically ran over to the sink and quickly turned on the cold water, sticking his head under the spigot to try to ease the rug burn sensation in his cheeks.

Tony's hand appeared suddenly on the counter as he hauled himself off the floor. Weary eyes found Thor's and he pointed an accusing finger into the blonde man's face. "Thor, you are one of the scariest care-givers I have _ever_ seen!" He continued to eye him with obvious trepidation as Thor looked around himself, totally lost. It looked like the hangover was finally (oh sweet justice!) making itself known in Thor's hard head. He took a moment to relish that fact, but after another second Tony did give Thor a wince of sympathy as the guy blinked at the sudden back lash from all of his recent activities. Then suddenly, with that reminder-**DING!**- the sympathy was gone!

With a shake of his head, their black-eyed hawk emerged with a feral expression on his red face.

"Coffee! Coffee now!" Clint demanded as he flipped the machine on. His left eye was twitching like a rodent with nerve damage.

The high-tech pride and joy of Tony's kitchen hissed and bubbled as a good coffee maker should. All residents of the room (who were conscious) gave the life-giving machine all of the attention thirsty antelopes give a thunder cloud in the desert. The only problem was that those clouds didn't start spitting out black tar-like crap before making weird grinding noises and blowing up into a tiny mushroom cloud.

"HOLY CRAP!," Toy's eyes bulged for the 50th time in the last 45 minutes. Burning pieces of coffee maker were spread all over the floor. Clint was smoldering and rolling on the floor where he had dived in a desperate attempt to avoid _more_ injury. Thor was using Mjolnir like a Whack-A-Mole mallet to smash whatever pieces were left. No one tried to stop him, because after everything that had happened that morning, they didn't need to see anything else, like unexploded pieces, proving Murphy's Law for them.

"By Odin's Eye! Never have I beheld such destruction!" Thor gasped as he stood over the charred coffee machine. He was finally in a position to see the whole room in its dismantled glory, and what was more, he was still seeing this whole disaster with double-vision.

"What wrought this…this…"his still slightly-sloshed brain turned its little gears trying to find words of the correct magnitude. Eventually, one of Tony's favorite films flashed in his mind. "Mini-Ragnarok" he finished, with a look that clearly asked for validation. The gesture Clint gave him was not the one he remembered accompanying the words from the film.

Tony was going to answer him with actual words, but his eyes had locked onto something lying on the floor, just beyond the epicenter of the debris. He slid out from behind his island-turned-bunker and picked it up, eyes full of disbelief.

Clint, done rolling on the ground, tilted his head. "Is that…a Troll doll?"

Tony gave a tiny nod. "Yes, yes it is." he answered as he held the doll at arm's length without taking his eyes from its mangled form. "It appears to have had its hair burned off, which was once," he looked hard at the thing's head. "Blue?" He continued to gaze at it like it would suddenly break down and spill its already spilled-looking guts on what they had all been doing last night as Steve staggered in the door looking slightly paler than he had a little while ago. He wisely decided to stay in the doorway as he took in ground zero at safe distance. He looked around at the faces of all his teammates, his eyes finally fixating on the smashed and steamy mess on the ground in front of them. Then he voiced the burning question:

"So, what are we going to do about coffee?"

Tony looked at him, and then he looked at the troll and his eyes grew wide with horror as reality sank in.

"Whoever stuffed this in my machine is buying for us, that's what we're doing."

He turned around _real_ slow and looked dead at Thor, who looked back without understanding why he was so fascinating all of a sudden. Then he glanced at the melted toy in Tony's hand and back to the focused expression on Tony's face. It eventually dawned on him. His jaw dropped in shock, his features melding into a look of disbelief and innocence.

"My dear comrade, I do not recall all of the events of last evening, but do you truly believe that I would destroy anything _by design_ that belonged to a friend?"

What he really meant was 'Do you really think I'd do anything to hurt the _coffee maker_?'

Knowing the answer to both of those questions, Tony shook his head back and forth in super-serious slow motion, his scowl boring into Thor like Frigga's guilt-face. Then he looked over Thor's shoulder and answered "No, I blame your green-leather-wearing, frozen-food-impersonating lunatic of a brother!"

Thor turned around and did an outstanding rendition of a bass being drawn up towards the light. He rushed to his brother and continued to goggle at him for a split second before reaching out to gingerly grab hold of his shoulder.

"Loki!" he called softly, with a little smile as he gave the shoulder a jostle.

Now, the Avengers had dealt with Loki before, so their next actions couldn't really be counted up against them. Steve, Tony and Clint collectively ran for the door like scared school girls, tripping over each other, Steve landing flat on his chin and Tony accidently back handing poor Clint in the face just to get away from the ticking time bomb in the wall. But instead of waking up raging and hurling spells like an angry porcupine, Loki did something far more psychologically debilitating. His right arm reached up and grabbed hold of Thor's. Then he twisted himself around with a sleepy mumble and wrenched himself out far enough to rest his head and upper torso against Thor's broad, warm chest. He smiled contentedly and let out a quiet sigh that made Thor's face split into a joyous grin before pulling his brother all the way out of their microwave. As Thor held him in his arms Loki earned a dropped jaw from all those watching as he nestled his face into Thor's chest, smiled even wider, and mumbled a sleepy "Goodnight Thor."

Not a sound was made. The pigs took flight. Hela broke out her snowshoes. Another female Smurf was discovered. A man named Stan stopped being the man. The Rolling Stones quit touring. The crickets lay flat on the ground in silent defeat. The pin that was about to fall hung magically suspended in air…

"Awwwwwwwwww!"

Clint stared at Tony, the left side of his face bright red, and his mouth agape.

"Loki is not 'awww', he's not…That's just…Oh gosh…I never thought the entrance to the Twilight Zone was in your microwave…" By the end, he was muttering, his eyes flicking back and forth between Loki and Tony, desperate denial in his eyes. Denial, denial, denial. That. Was. Not. CUTE.

Steve wasn't saying anything. He was, ironically, laying on his back on the floor, looking at the ceiling like he'd discovered something amazing on its surface. He. Was. Not. Lookin'. Nope, he wasn't gonna look.

Thor hid his amusement at his friends reactions well, more for the sake of his slumbering brother's pride than anything else, but he needed to wake Loki very soon. Tony knew the location of every single electronic object in his house. That included all of the cameras. God help them all when Loki found those pictures. Not if. When.

"Loki." He spoke a little louder than he had the first time around and he bounced his brother a bit to get him to wake up. Loki "hmmmed…" and snuggled closer.

Loki cuteness: 2(000,000)

Avengers Resistance to said Cuteness: -5(00)

"Loki!" Thor intoned with false sternness. He shook his brother's upper half with his left arm, and Loki's head gently dislodged from his chest long enough to bring him closer to reality.

Loki breathed a deep breath and started moving his head back and forth like he knew he hadn't reached the surface of awareness yet. He slowly dragged his eyelids open, the irises still peaceful and drowsy as he blinked and looked back toward Thor…Boom. He blinked hard and rapidly, trying to focus his sleep-filled eyes and what they were trying to say to his brain. He brought his eyes up very slowly, taking in details that seemed both right and bizarre, to look into his brother's curious and concerned eyes. A major 'What the Hel?' look crossed his sleepy features. Then he swung his head around sluggishly, and as if sensing their presence, trained his eyes on the intently watching Steve, Clint, and Tony. The filthy, bruised, and piled on top of each other in a heap Steve, Clint, and Tony. The laughing, apparently choking, and looking as though they could start panicking Steve, Clint, and Tony. Though not necessarily in that order.

He looked back up at Thor, who gave him a smile that was meant to be reassuring. Loki blinked. Then he turned around and looked back at the microwave with a thoughtful expression on his face like he'd left something behind. Then he turned his head back around...And burst out laughing.

"I must have eaten the worm and the umbrella!" he cried with a hiccup. He laughed until Thor and the others thought he must have gotten his hands on something that they hadn't been given their piece of. Tony was starting to feel a bit cheated, if his face was anything to go by. Tears streamed off of Loki's face, and his arm came around Thor's neck to hold himself up so that Thor could put him down. But when he was on his own feet, he abruptly decided to relocate to being on his butt, where he rocked back and forth, roaring with mirth.

"How, *cough*, *breath, breath*, did I get in the microwave?" he asked, looking at Tony like a respected rival in an ongoing chess match of ridonculosity. Tony shook his head in a well-feigned dignified manner .

"I wouldn't waste a good appliance unless I was actually gonna cook ya." he answered, giving Loki a smug look. Then his look changed drastically, and he glared at Loki, his dulled eyes suddenly flashing. "Unlike some asses in green I need not name!" he snarled, holding out the troll like an exorcist's crucifix.

Loki looked up into Tony's eyes with big innocent eyes like a six-foot-tall infant, then gradually followed the length of Tony's arm to the decimated toy. He stared at it for a while, then glanced back up at Tony's face, which was now sporting a raised eyebrow.

"Is it…yours?" he asked slowly.

"No it is not mine! It is a freaky, naked, blue-haired throwback from the eighties that was used to destroy, nay, _murder_ my coffee maker!" Tony growled with an edge of java less desperation in his voice.

He looked down into Loki's face and could have sworn he hadn't just accused the trickster of his usual mischief but kicked his pet puppy, thrown it on a spit and sold it to a guy that worked out of the back of a shady restaurant. The taller man's face was a picture of pure shock and sadness, his eyes widening with every passing second. The arms that he was using to hold himself almost buckled before he caught himself, and his lips were parted in a silent gasp of despair. He shook his head minutely, the soft twitches barely noticeable, before he fastened his eyes on to Tony's with surprising fierceness.

"What…do you mean? What happened to the…" In answer, Tony turned his head to look at the clump of compost on the floor and Loki followed his gaze. His bleary emerald eyes were as sharp and focused as a rifle scope as he absorbed the carnage His brows came together, then shot up to his hairline. Then he was moving, frantically shooting forward on his knees. He crawled to the edge of the soggy lump of twisted shards and tenderly reached out his hand, but didn't touch anything. Just helplessly caressed the air above the mess. His last hope drifted away like a runaway soap bubble as he realized that…

"NoooooooooooooooOOOOO! Not the coffee! You think? Why would I…We _need_ this! Ooooooooowwwww…" His shouting had brought around the headache, and he fell back on his backside again with a pained wince and a hand on his forehead.

"No sane creature would do that to a machine capable of creating that beautiful elixir." He wheezed out with some force, opening one eye to gaze mournfully at the sacrilege before him.

"So it could have been any of us." Tony deadpanned. He was keeping himself in bad cop mode, not giving an inch to Loki's soft whimpers of homage and longing. "My money's on you, so we've decided that your money's going towards our charity for the rehabilitation of the unimaginably bombed. If you argue, I will be forced to have the pleasure of kicking your butt. But I would rather you just buy the coffee and spare me, and you, the literal headache.

Loki shot Tony an indignant glower.

"Mr. Stark, I am devious, contrary, and occasionally malicious; but I would NOT in a million of your years: Destroy. Any. Working. Coffee maker.

For a moment, Tony felt like laughing. But he kept the hardass face in place.

"Be that as it may, which is fairly disturbing, you're still buying. At Dunkin' Donuts. Coffee and donuts. And breakfast! At Denny's." he finished with a satisfied nod.

Loki stared levelly at him, not saying a word, the edges of his jaw shifting almost imperceptibly. Tony never broke his gaze.

Glare. Match

1 minute ticked by…

2 minutes ticked…

3 minutes-

"Fine."

Steve's head fell back with a thump.

"But I want an apology. I did not harm your coffee maker." Loki emphasized with genuinely wounded pride on his face. "I don't know if I'll be able to tell you who did, but…"

He didn't get to finish as at that moment every blind in the kitchen shot up and the force of the sun nailed every man in the room right straight in the retinas. A very un-manly shriek came from many directions and the sound of banging doors and crashing cutlery sounded from near the sink and dishwasher.

"_**Good Morning Sirs**_!" Jarvis' lilting voice rang out at full volume, his tone almost sadistically chipper. "_The temperature is 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and we will be expecting a bright and __**SUNNY**__ day in the city of Malibu_!" he sang out like a T.V. game show host on a sugar high.

"_You're the devil Jarvis!_," Tony hissed "The power of Christ compels you!" he cried.

"Are we not feeling up to par today gentlemen?" asked Jarvis with very badly hidden sarcasm.

"May your central processor grow fungus and short out your accent!" Tony spat at him acidly, voice muffled by the door of the tiny closet pantry he had taken refuge in.

"But then you would have no choice but to read the text version of the records of the events of last evening. And I don't believe you would enjoy the repercussions of using your higher brain functions just yet Mr. Stark" Jarvis crooned.

Every head turned in the mechanical entity's direction, even though only two of them could be seen.

"What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying Sir is that even though you saw fit to abandon me at that…Oh, but that would spoil the story wouldn't it Sir? Said Jarvis. "Anyway, I, to put a twist on a popular culture phrase, _know what you did last night!_"He finished with a dramatic gasp.

There was a long, serious pause. Everyone was having reactions that ranged from dismantle Jarvis to hide the evidence to placate him with whatever gifts a bodiless artificial intelligence (albeit a rather very intelligent one) could possible ask them for. But only one person actually did anything.

The door of the dishwasher slowly crept open, allowing for a sliver of light to creep in which caused it to immediately be slammed shut. But after a moment it began once again to eep open until two tired emerald eyes peered out cautiously.

"I'm calling a time out" Loki said baldly towards Jarvis' speakers. "I am going to have coffee before anything else happens. If S.H.I.E.L.D., or anyone else comes at us with anything but a stir stick, they will be very, very sorry. So unless anyone has any objections?" He tilted his head to give the warning its full affect.

Jarvis didn't say a word.

A second or two passed, and then Steve slowly lifted his head out of the sink. Tony came out of hiding and shuffled forward to pull Thor out from behind the fridge, which was now tipping even more dangerously to one side. Loki hauled himself out of the dishwasher, careful not to step on the dish drawer he had hurled to the floor in his scramble for protection, and Clint climbed out of the island cupboard to glance about with anxiety. They each started to make their way toward the door, looking over their shoulders and sending each other expectantly nervous glances. Still nothing. Everybody picked their way through the mess of pie pans and lima beans that absolutely coated the entry way. In the process of avoiding a fall, Loki finally looked down at his plaster-coated pants. He shot Tony a horrified look.

"You really were going to cook me!" he cried.

Tony snorted and kept moving. Loki kept staring at his back for a moment, then smirked, and kept moving too.

As they successfully exited the kitchen, they all turned in unison for one last untrusting look toward the ceiling.

Not a word.

Still not convinced, but a bit more hopeful, the Avengers (and honorary partier Loki) walked to the inner door of garage/landing strip and looked around for a moment. It didn't look like they'd made their way down here. No booby-traps, nothing looked like it was broken, no missing pieces of outfit, and no dismembered body parts. All fantastic signs as far as they were concerned.

They all piled into one of Tony's more spacious vehicles, a brand new, burnt orange H2. Tony climbed into the driver's seat, Steve took shotgun, and Thor, Loki, and Clint took the seat behind them. Tony revved the engine and slowly pulled up along the long passage way toward the sea-level drive above them, down to the front gate, and out heading for the highway.

*A*********A**********A*********(AVENGERS)***********A**********A*************A**********

There was no noise in the house. The birds outside in the trees chirped. The floor dripped with dislodged food particles and liquids. And then a dishonestly innocent voice wondered:

"Perhaps I should have warned them about Master Loki's modifications to the vehicles."


	2. Chapter 2

Here's the second piece of the mystery…

I still don't own Marvel. Good for everyone honestly.

**Chapter 2**

Tony started out driving as fast as his aching head would allow: approximately 10…8…10 miles per hour. Steve was leaning forward with his head in his hands, which was apparently the only thing keeping him from groaning it completely off. It didn't matter how smoothly they were going when your stomach had defected to the circus. Thor sat on the driver's side window seat in the bench behind Tony and tried hard not to look out the window. Not only was everything doubled, but now it was flipping moving at an ungodly 10…9…10 miles per hour. At least Jarvis' readings and updates weren't flying across the windows. There was also no heavy metal on, and the disco panels were off, so he wasn't going to go catatonic. Yet. Clint had the other window seat, and he was avoiding the view too. But he had an advantage considering his swollen eyes were so puffy and he was so tired that he was already basically blind. Loki sat between them.

Wait.

Loki was being quiet. Very, very quiet. Oh, ooohh crap.

"What's goin' on back there?" Tony asked with carefully measured concern. "Is everyone alive or should I drop by the wharf before I hit Dunkin'?"

Clint let out a low moan and Thor blinked in slight confusion with a quiet 'Huh?' then straightened a bit. "Aye, all is well Tony, eh Loki?" Thor's eyes settled on his brother's pale face. There was a long drawn-out nothing. "Loki?"

Tony winced and worked up the guts to look into the rearview mirror.

Loki was in the most historically epic staring match the universe had ever seen, with the floor. His eyes were the size of golf balls that reflected everything they drove past like mirrors and completely unblinking. Thor and Tony watched him for a few moments. When he didn't move for even blink for one solid minute, Thor got a little bit antsy and reached out to touch Loki's knee. Still, no reaction.

Tony glanced back at the mirror. His 'my recently reformed arch nemesis is in my car' senses were saying "Oh no! There goes the Stark 26", but his 'the dude I drank with last night, which might by universal law make us cosmic brothers is acting weird' sense said "Have a heart you jerk!" He twisted around in his seat a little, keeping half an eye on the road, and looked more closely at Loki's bleached pallor.

"Ok…" He started to slow the Hummer.

"Don't!" Loki urged when Tony moved to pullover.

Tony looked at him with confusion and sped back up.

"Are you gonna be alright?" Tony asked a couple of minutes later after Loki didn't elaborate.

"I won't…" Loki paused and zoned out again for a few seconds, then he looked up again, raising his gaze by degrees. "Actually I _will_ be okay, but do not, under _any _circumstances, slow this transport device again. If we do not reach this coffee house you spoke about soon, I will not be claimed responsible for the state of the interior of you precious vehicle. I'll just continue to not look out the windows or doors, and save everyone, in more accurate words myself, the embarrassment of a reaction. Does that sound good?"

"For once, yes" Tony snarked half-truthfully.

He meandered along at a decent, but extremely under what was considered necessary speed. It wasn't lunch hour, so no one was trying to run them off the road to get them out of the way. Except that worm over there. And that slug. And that bird hopping by them with but one leg to stand on. Oh and that…

"Huhhhhhh!" Loki huffed out, very carefully, still being dangerously nauseous. No one answered. They had all successfully zoned out and were not coming back to earth until they'd been safely delivered to the coffee shop. Loki sighed.

"Can this ridiculous horseless contraption not go any faster?..."

**VRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM !**

The space shuttle hadn't made that kind of time.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAH!"

The world shot past as everyone's bodies were pressed into the leather seats like butter in the nooks of a bagel. Except for Loki, whose stomach was being pushed back to its natural position, which relieved his pain, so that now he was leaning forward eagerly in his seat, his hoots and calls egging the Hummer on.

Tony, stuck like the bugs on his windshield, strained against the pull of inertia, but was only successful at pulling his eyes up to the rearview. What he saw made him wish he'd updated his will. Seeing Loki's bulging eyes and hands thrown into the air like he was on a roller coaster, screaming to the heavens and pounding on the back of Steve's seat will do that.

"Oh good Lord, save our sorry…"He didn't get to finish as he was suddenly being used as an arm rest and he'd been winded for a second time that day. He noticed it was Loki's arm (make that elbow) too late to just cut loose all over the sadist's back with the bile that had been viciously forced back down his throat.

"Can I help you!?" he groused in agony. Loki didn't turn around, his hands on the wheel, as he deadpanned: "Yes Tin man, you can remove your hand from my waist. I'm sorry but I don't swing that way my dear."

The guilty appendage unwrapped it's death grip on the first thing it had instinctually grabbed for security. Tony's face was beyond apoplectic.

"Get your skinny, screwball butt back in your seat before I take one of Pepper's shoes to your face!" he roared.

Loki ignored him, concentrating completely on the road ahead, which to anyone else appeared to be a huge interior view of a kaleidoscope. Then to Steve and Tony's horror, his eyes widened in recognition before narrowing in determination. Without warning Loki yanked the wheel hard to the right. Two heads smacked into the driver's side windows hard enough to set off the automatic tank ammo shields on the left side of the car. Clint's head connected with Thor's shoulder, which was just the merciful relief he needed. And Steve was suddenly introduced to both the gear shift (on the chin), and Loki's bony hip when it was roughly indented into the sinewy part of his left shoulder. Loki grunted in surprise, but aside from a sideways glance, kept his focus on the destruction of every traffic law ever written.

"Remove your useless bulk from the roadway you son of a buck-toothed troll!" Loki shouted at a car that probably couldn't even see them. He impatiently gritted his teeth and weaved into the left lane. Tony, who was the only one who could see where Loki was driving, screamed bloody murder in unadulterated panic. He might have actually screamed the word "TRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!"

But then, Loki could have been wrong.

Either way, he didn't blink as a giant green and white transport vehicle suddenly enveloped his vision. All he knew was that three seconds later the air conditioning vents were spewing tiny minty crumbs and miniscule shreds of foil wrappers into his face and there was clear sky in the viewport.

Silence reigned in the Humvee. Loki's eyes never twitched from the road. Then many minutes later, his tongue slowly peeped out and he began to lick his lips.

"You mortals are a very poorly advanced group in many categories, but whomever imagined this delicacy into creation should be made a lord of his homeland and awarded for his genius!"

This wasn't agreed with or denied because the only thought drifting through anyone's mind at that moment was 'Thank God for the in-suit urinal.."

Then, though they were still traveling at the speed of light, Loki suddenly smiled like he'd been struck by the secret to life. With a quick push off of Tony's diaphragm, he leveraged himself higher above the dashboard with a cry:

"THERE!"

Tony didn't know what he was talking about when the world was now one with the atmosphere for all he could tell. He glanced again at the rearview and saw a sign flash past them. A pink, orange, and brown blur of hope flashed across his thoughts. But wait, if that was the sign…

"You idiot! You missed the…!" Loki spun the wheel to the left and burned rubber, flying across the partition, tires squealing like angry seals and leaving black tread marks smoking on the grass. Clint's limp form slid like a wet noodle across the bench and glommed onto the passenger-side window like a suction Garfield. Steve's head slammed into the dashboard so hard he set off the airbag and wound up pinned stiff against his seat. Thor's fingers latched onto the door panel's armrest, his hair fling into his face and the air whooshing out of his lungs. There was a sound like a 'thoomp' of misplaced air that caught Tony's attention a second before Loki's hand shot out and squashed his head into the window.

His body propped up by Tony's face and his eyes trained on their destination like a falcon on a mouse coated in beef gravy, Loki slipped his other hand off of the wheel for one brief second. A flash of green shot out of his fingertips, and his hand returned to its iron grip on the wheel before everyone's screams could pass their muffled mouths. He followed the flash of green energy as it sailed straight for the coffee shop, the wild look In his eyes growing more manic and his brow furrowed in scary serious concentration. Heedless of the cars in the other lane, he peeled through all four lanes of traffic. His eyes became dark slits. The car actually accelerated.

And then, he let go.

Loki reached over and pushed down on the window control button, and as the automatic glass slid down Tony's face Loki took the pressure off of his right ear in order to scream out:

"TAKE THE WHEEL!"

Face half flat and half bruised, Tony instinctively reached out to latch onto the steering wheel, partial relief flooding his stomach. He found them locked in a course that sped past the order taker's speaker, and down the lane that passed by the drive thru line. He held on feverishly and Loki braced his hands on both sides of the open window, his body just below Tony's line of sight. They flew past the order taker's microphone speaker and the menu board, and in that split second, Tony thought he saw Loki, standing in front of it, a pleasant smile turning into a smirk as he turned to look Tony dead in the eyes.

"What the hell…? Tony's question never got answered, because at that exact moment, the Loki hovering over his lap launched himself out the window.

Three pairs of eyes stared at Loki, with his feet latched onto the window like a T.V. tray and his body prone, arms wide and grasping toward the pick-up window. They saw the face of a young employee flash past, a box and a cup carrier in her hands. Loki's fingers wrapped around each container, a shiny Lexus three inches from their bumper as their gigantic vehicle tipped closer to the line of usuals that were completely unaware of the impending cataclysm.

And then, like that Loki was back inside, his freakishly strong feet planted in Tony's lap, his rear on the center console and a hand on the wheel while the other balanced the sugary edibles. He smoothly guided the truck back onto the highway, still going over 100 as though it was part of his usual morning commute. A placidly thoughtful expression graced his features as he calmly spoke:

"Perfunctory speed"

The Hummer obediently quieted, the roaring of the engine settling into a low rumbling purr. It moved at the recommended fifty miles per hour, rolling down the highway like absolutely nothing had happened. Loki casually climbed back into his seat between Thor and Clint and squirmed a little, realizing there was less room to his left than there had been before. Glancing over at Thor's door, he saw how it was popped inward like a can crushed by a fist where the armrest used to be. He shrugged and settled back, the steaming coffee and box of donuts resting in his lap as he stared out of the windshield. They drove down the road, cars moving past them, quiet noises drifting through the front window. A few restaurants passed by , and Loki began to wonder if this 'Denny's' might be among them.

There had yet to be one word spoken within their transport.

Then Clint unexpectedly groaned and peeled himself away from the window, blinked and rested his head back against his seat. He took in the shocked look on Thor's paler than he'd ever seen it face, Steve's trapped form pressed against his seat, Tony's death grip on the wheel and shell shocked expression, and then the crushed door that Thor still clutched in his shaking hands. His expression remained neutral as his puffy eyes landed on the objects in Loki's lap. With one last look at the strange condition of his team, he shrugged and accepted a cup from Loki's collection. Loki turned and opened the lid to the donut box, offering it for Clint's inspection. Clint glanced up into the other man's grinning green eyes and asked:

"Is that sprinkly one jelly-filled?"

Clint didn't even care to ask when Tony suddenly erupted into hysterical laughter. But he did wonder why he jerked the wheel like a broken valve when Loki innocently queried: "Isn't that the exit for Denny's Mr. Stark?"


End file.
